The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-02
Does retribution attend this kind of

Is there any other sin in the whole
dark catalogue of evil, that brings with
it its own reward so surely and so pal
pably as this ? When a man has be-
come physical wreck, when his mind
is blurred, when his intellect plays him
false, or goes out in madness or imbe-
cility-when all his fine sensibilities
are hardened, and none but the gross
est pleasures can allure him, m,-when his
whole being has no spring of action ex-
cept one fell desire; does he know any
thing of retribution ? Yes, but he is
often destined to know more. He often
lives to see the ruin of every soul he
loves, through his own weakness and
folly. His fortune flies, his wife sinks
into an early grave-and his children
| heap curses on his head. Too often
these children are the avenging furies
who pursue him. Born with shattered
nerves and unsound constitutions, their
| fearful inheritance often eventuates in
epilepsy, in madness or idiocy.
Could any retribution be SO fearful to
parent as that which l witness
many time from my window, when a
girl, now grown to womanhood, reels
past like man in the worst stages of
intoxication. There is no light of in
telligence in her face, but in it's place
the vacant stare of the imbecile, and in
every lock, every movement, she car
ries the mark of her drunken father
upon her, and must carry it till she
dies. And l often deplore the lot of
another father, deeply incorporate in
his youth, but now in every way tenn
perate and high minded, who sees the
sons who should be the staff of his old
age, Gagged like wild beasts in the ma
MACS cell. All, what imagination can
conceive Of retribution such as this
poet nor novelist cannot paint it, nor
can the heart OF any man, who has not
endured it, conceive of it. This, too, is
meted out to ignorant as well as to will
full offenders, and the young boy in his
frolicksome youth, before he has learn
ed how these ways take hold on hell,
may SOW the seeds in his own person
of such frightful punishments as these.
The fathers eat sour grapes and the
childlen's teeth are set on edge-the
doctrine may seem hard Que but ex-
| perience has proved, through long ages,
that there is no truer truth than this.
! that 'the sins of the father are visited
upon the children, to the third and
fourth generations" The doctrine of
heredity is, of itself, doctrine of retri-
button; and he who denies inspiration,
must take the same unwelcome dogma
from science.
What shall we say of the retribution
which overtakes the dishonest man and
the hypecrite ? Do you not believe in
such retrioution Read the account
of Bulstrode, in ''Middlemarch, ''and you
will see distinctly before you the fate
of many prosperous and honored man
to- day. Outwardly all is well, but with
in is a seething hell of apprehension,
of remorse, of dire foreboding. Take
this account of Bulstrode, shivering on
the brink of exposure, and see if
it is not life-like, and might not be
matched in the next street. "a great
dread had seized his susceptible frame,
and the scorching approach of shame
wrought in him a new spiritual need.
Night and day, while the resurgent
threatening past was making con-
science with him, he was thinking by
what means he could recover peace and
trust; by what sacrifice he could stay the
rod. His belief in these moments of
dread was, that if he spontaneously did
something right, God would save him
from the consequences of wrong doing.
For religion can only change when the
emotions which fill it are changed, and
the religion of personal fear remains
nearly at the level of the savage.o
The description of Bulstrode's night
by the death-bed of Rallies is one of
the masterpieces of George Eliot's pen,
for it is a part of the retribution for many
evil deeds, that the weakened nature
yields to temptations, which it had sure
ly resisted before the first wrong doing.
One can but pity the strange, piteous
conflict in the soul of this unhappy man,
who had longed for years to be better
than he was who had taken his selfish
possessions into discipline and clad
them in serene robes, so that he had
walked with them as devout choir,
till now that terror had risen among
them, and they could chant no longer,
but throw out their common cries for
safety"
Is there no retribution that awaits
hard heartedness, and cruelty, unkind-
ness, and unlovingness in the home
When the pale and unloved wife has
faded out of the life, as poor little Mrs.
Dombey, faded out in that most pathet-
ic story; when the children have been
driven forth by harshness and spurned
affection, as poor Florence Gay had
been driven forth; when perhaps old
age, or sickness, or poverty have come;
then will there arise from the deserted
soul no cry of agony; will there stalk
through the memory no visions of the
days that are no more, days of neglect
ed opportunities for kindness and for
tenderness; and will there be sent up to
God no unavailingprayers forOn more
| chance to do the duty which had haeD